THE
HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AND COPTIC LANGUAGES

by
Dr. Boulos Ayad AyadDepartment
of AnthropologyUniversity
of ColoradoBoulder,
COSeptember
2001original
document may be found at http://www.amcoptic.org

The
Origin of the Coptic Language

Semitic
or Hemitic: The ancient Egyptian language, which was the origin
of the Coptic language, was one of the groups of languages scholars have
classified as Hemito- Semitic.1 This classification includes
as well ancient Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic. The philologists
who agree with this classification discovered that the ancient Egyptian
language consisted of two elements: Semitic and Hemitic, or Indian-European.
Other scholars believe that the language tended to be of the Semitic group
because there was a great similarity between the Semitic and ancient Egyptian
languages. At this time, there is no definite answer as to which group
is related.2

The
Ancient Egyptian Literature: The ancient Egyptian language has
its own grammar and literature. Many thousands of distinct texts were left
on their pyramids, temples, tombs, obelisks, statues, ostraca, stela, papyri,
sarcophagi, coffins, vessels, and different objects. Theses texts can be
classified as follow: funeral, military, political, daily life, stories,
morals, principles, and instructions, hymns, religious and ritual, and
historical.

Stages
of the Ancient Egyptian Language: Ancient Egyptian evolved in
various stages. It was used from Dynasties I-VIII or from 3180 to 2240
B.C. The writing/inscriptions included the pyramid texts, official documents,
formal funerary formulae, tomb inscriptions, and some biographical texts.
This stage continued with little modification to the second stage, considered
the Middle Egyptian, from Dynasties IX-XI or 2240-1990 B.C. Middle Egyptian
was “later contaminated with popular elements. In the later form it survived
for some monumental and literary purposes right down to Greco-Roman times,
while the earlier form was retained as the religious language.”3
Late Egyptian, from Dynasties XVIII-XXIV (1573 to 715 B.C.), included business
documents, letters, stories, literary compositions, and official monuments
related to Dynasty XIX and later. In addition to few texts, “wherein the
vernacular shows itself unmixed with the ‘classical’ idiom of Middle Egypt,”
different non-Egyptian vocabulary appeared in this Late Egyptian stage.4

The
Ancient Egyptian Writing:The ancient
Egyptian writing began to be abandoned following the fourth and fifth century
A.D. but it was used side by side with the Coptic language until the fifth
century A.D. The Byzantine occupation of Egypt in the fourth century A.D.
and the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century A.D., followed by
the widespread use of Arabic, caused the ancient Egyptian language (in
Hieroglyphics, Hieratic, and Demotic) to be totally forgotten, along with
its scripts.

After many centuries, writers,
scholars, and amateurs began the attempt to find an explanation for the
Hieroglyphic writing and to decipher the ancient Egyptian language. One
of these pioneers was the Jesuit priest, Athanasius Kircher, of the 17th
Century. In the 15th Century and after Horapollo tried to interpret
the Hieroglyphic symbols, others copied the Hieroglyphic inscriptions from
the Egyptian monuments, such as P. Lucas, R. Pococke, C. Niebuhr and other
visitors to Egypt such as F.L. Norden. Through the 18th Century,
few scholars succeeded Father Kircher. Among those were: A. Gordon, N.
Freret, P.A.L. D’Origny, J.D. Marsham, C. de Gebelin, J.H. Schumacher,
J.G. Koch, T.Ch. Tychsen and P.E. Jablonski. Also, few scholars in the
18th Century could identify the meaning of the oval as J.J.
Barthélemy, de Guignes and F. Zoega.

Towards the 18thcentury,
Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 envaded Egypt. Pierre Françoise-Xavier
Bouchard, an engineer and one of Napoleon’s officers, was engaged in cleaning
the ruined Fort Rashid. In 1799 he discovered the Rosetta Stone, a slab
made of basalt, which measures 3 feet 9 inches long by 2 feet 4 ½
inches wide by 11 inches thick. A copy of the inscriptions of the stone
was sent by Bonaparte to Paris but the Rosetta Stone itself became the
property of the British and was later housed in the British Museum in 1802.
The slab was inscribed in 196 B.C. in Hieroglyphics, Demotic and Greek,
during the time of Ptolemy V Epiphanies.

Sylvestre de Sacy in 1802
could read some of the names mentioned on the slab but he failed to recognize
an alphabet. De Sacy was followed by J.D. Akerbald, who read the inscriptions
unsuccessfully but identified a few words in addition to the names written
in Demotic and their equivalent in Greek.

Others showed their interest
in deciphering the lab but they failed to read it until Thomas Young, who
studied the inscriptions on the slab and finally “was able to compile a
Greek-Demotic vocabulary containing eighty-six groups, most of them correct.”
“…This effort, however, was based largely on guesswork.”

The last scholar who deciphered
the Ancient Egyptian language and its symbols successfully was Jean François
Champollion, who recognized “that the Hieroglyphics were neither exclusively
phonetic, nor wholly symbolic, but a combination of the two.” According
to this he was able to read many of the names of the kings and queens of
Egypt and he wrote a book about Egyptian grammar and an Egyptian dictionary.
After the death of Champollion in 1832, other scholars continued the study
of the Ancient Egyptian language and made a lot of progress, among those
were: Lespsius, Ludwig Stern, Adolph Erman, K. Sethe, W. Speigelberg, H.
Thompson, H. Grapow, H.K. Brugsch, L. Griffith, E. Revillout and S. de
Buck.5

As a result of such decipherment,
we know that the ancient Egyptian language was written with different syllables
and began with pictures borrowed from nature, such as drawings of human
beings (men, women, and children), animals, plants, houses and palaces,
water, hills, the sun, moon, and sky, wind, and ships. All of these signs
number about 721 syllables. Every sign was first written as a picture of
one of the syllables in its complete form, which is called a pictograph
or “ideogram, or pictures for whole words; phonograms, or pictures for
syllables; alphabetic signs, or pictures for individual letters.”6

In many words, written with
syllabic signs, the last letter of the syllable is written out. This letter
is called the phonetic complement. It is not to be pronounced separately,
but it is used in order that the reader may know how the syllable should
end.7

Moreover, the ancient Egyptian
writing had what we call determinatives, which usually attached to the
end of the word and were silent. To some extent, these gave the meaning
or the general idea of the word as well as a picture. When one reads a
text, there are no spaces between the words as the texts were written as
one sentence with syllables or alphabetic signs, but those who can read
the ancient Egyptian language know the end of each word from the determinatives.
Some words express abstract ideas; in these cases, they used the picture
of a roll of papyrus. Thus, determinatives are useful in knowing the meaning
of some words but in other instances, they indicate just a general idea.
Still other words have no determinatives and their meaning is known through
practice in reading Hieroglyphics.8

The
Different Writing: The ancient Egyptians considered their language
sacred, taught to them by the God Thoth. For this reason, the language
lasted about 4,000 years with some changes from one period to the next.
Even the number of signs remained the same through the history of ancient
Egypt, and the syllables and signs of Hieroglyphics remained likewise the
same. Before Dynasty XI until Dynastic XXV, they used abbreviated writing,
which is called Hieratic. After this period, Hieratic became abnormal Hieratic;
it was then abbreviated and become more cursive, which scholars consider
the Demotic writing.9 When the Greeks saw the Hieroglyphic writing
form, they gave it the name “hiergrammata,” which was derived from “hieros”
(“holy”) and “glyphein” (“to carve”). “Grammata” means “letters”; thus,
the entire meaning was “sacred carved letters.”10

Hieroglyphic:
The Egyptians began to use their hieroglyphics writing during Dynasty I
(about 3200 B.C.) — or probably not long before the First Dynasty — until
August 24, 394 A.D.

Hieroglyphics has its own
system of writing, being written from left to right, right to left, or
from top to bottom. This system agrees with the “Boustrophedon” theory11
that, when a bull ploughed the land, he started from left to right or from
the right to left and went from one row to the next from the top to the
bottom. When the ancient Egyptian noticed this, he used the same method
in his writing. This system was adopted by other nations as well.

On the walls of various monuments
can be seen ancient Egyptian inscriptions without any spaces, punctuation,
or special signs. Moreover, ancient Egyptians never wrote in separate sentences.

Hieratic:
Before the Middle Kingdom the Egyptians abbreviated their syllables and
the Greeks gave it the name of “hieratikos,” meaning “sacred or priestly.”12
It
is now know as Hieratic, “Because in the Greco-Roman age it was the usual
script employed by the priests . . .And in the latest period, as already
said, Hieratic was generally employed by the priests when writing religious
texts on papyrus.”13

The direction of the hieratic
writing was from right to left but during the Middle Kingdom, Hieratic
was often written in vertical columns. Gradually, it also came to be written
horizontally.

Hieratic was used for writing
on papyrus and on wooden sarcophagi. Thus, it was employed for the purposes
of administration, legal documents, religious and magical texts, private
and official letters, instructions and educational morals, stories and
literature, accounts, inventories, lists, and scientific books.

Many of the hieratic texts
found in the desert on stelae and rocks, considered graffiti writing, were
left by travelers or those working the mines and quarries. Writing Hieratic
on stone became widespread among the Egyptians, especially toward the end
of the New Kingdom and Dynasty XXII, which was established by Libyan mercenaries.14

Around
the eighth century B.C., Hieratic became a more cursive script, called
“abnormal Hieratic,” after which Demotic writing appeared.15

Demotic:
The third script used by the ancient Egyptians was Demotic, which was named
from the Greek word “demotikos,” meaning “common.”16 Its use
began about 715 B.C. and continued until around 470 to 476 A.D., from Dynasty
XXV to late Roman times.17 We have many papyri written in Demotic
script, including different forms of legal documents dealing with marriage,
divorce, buy, selling, slavery, and inheritance, administrative documents,
stories, literature, texts of wisdom, prophesies, and magical and funeral
texts.

In
the last phase of the ancient Egyptian language, the Demotic became group
writing, meaning that one word was written in four or five syllables and
the scholars transliterated them into one or two letters. Thus, the language
became complicated and, with the presence of the Greeks in the ancient
Middle East, their language became widespread during the Ptolemaic period.
The Ptolemy employed the Greek language in administration and soon it became
the official language of the rulers. During this period, the Egyptians
were using Demotic as their native language with Greek being the official
language. At the same time, many Greek words found their way into Demotic
writings. And “none of these styles of writing (Hieroglyphics, Demotic
and Coptic) utterly banished the others, but each as it arose restricted
the domain of its progenitor. In the Greco-Roman period all these were
in use contemporaneously.”18

The
Ancient Egyptian Languageand Its
Two Systems

The ancient Egyptian language
had two systems: written and spoken.

The
Written Language: The Hieroglyphics, Hieratic, and Demotic are
considered written language because they were written with consonants and
semi-consonants and did not include any kind of nunnation, which is contrary
to Hebrew and Arabic. Both of these latter two languages contain nunnation,
symbols that should be located above and below the letters. Such symbols
represent the vowels and could assist in reading Hebrew and Arabic texts
correctly although most of their alphabets are considered consonants. The
ancient Egyptians did not invent such nunnation. Thus, the pronunciation
of the ancient Egyptian language disappeared gradually after the Byzantine
Empire. But during the Roman Empire in the third century A.D., the Egyptians
started to write their language with the 24 Greek letters in addition to
7 letters from Demotic. They wrote using these 31 letters, ignoring the
approximately 720 symbols employed by their ancestors. By doing this, they
preserved the pronunciation of their language and giving us Coptic.

The
Spoken Language System: Some scholars hold that the ancient
Egyptians had another language in addition to the written form. Father
Shenouda Maher summarized the opinion of Chain concerning the popular national
language of ancient Egypt, . . . in which he emphasizes that the Egyptian
and Coptic languages have been together simultaneously since olden times.
Chain has presented a copious and detailed study and has indicated that
the Egyptian language is not a spoken language is so far as it is basically
derived from Coptic, assuming that Coptic is the origin, and that the Egyptian
language was used by the priests and the scribes in their written work
only.

This means that the Egyptian
language is the language of the Egyptian who spoke in Coptic and who used
this language for scriptural purposes only. This Egyptian language was
only known to scribes and totally unknown to the public.19

The two systems could be
explained by assuming all Egyptian since very ancient times spoke one language,
but this language took a different form when used in writing. The oral
language was colloquial and used by the common people. Although the spoken
language developed over time, it was not written during the rule of the
pharaohs. As noted earlier, it was finally written in the third century
A. D., utilizing the 31 letters from Greek and Demotic. Utilizing all of
these letters allowed for the correct pronunciation of the written language,
primarily because the ancient Egyptian did not include vowels.20

In any case, the Coptic language
“is, at base, a dialect of Ancient Egyptian; many of the nouns and verbs
found in the Hieroglyphic texts remain unchanged in Coptic, and a large
number of others can, by making proper allowance for phonetic decay and
dialectic differences, be identified without difficulty.”21

The
Coptic LanguageIts Script,
Dialects, and Literature

The importance of Coptic
philologically is due to its being the only form of Egyptian in which the
vowels are regularly written . . .. The vocabulary is very different from
that of the older period and includes many Greek loan-words . . ..

The word order is more Greek
than Egyptian . . . at all events it is extensively influenced by Greek
biblical literature. The first entative efforts to transcribe the old Egyptian
language into Greek letters belong to the second century A.D., and are
of a pagan character (horoscopes, magical texts, and the like).22

Attempts
toward Proto-Coptic: It is difficult to accept that the Egyptian
language “is basically derived from Coptic, assuming that Coptic is the
origin.”23 More usually, Coptic is considered a continuation
of the ancient Egyptian language but written in with the Greek and Demotic
alphabets in the third century A.D. There were some attempts to write the
ancient Egyptian language using the Greek Alphabet before this time.

One of the oldest attempts
to write verbal Egyptian (Proto-Coptic) with Greek script is the Heidelberg
Papyrus no. 414 which goes back to the middle of the third century B.C.
It contains a list of Coptic terms written with Greek script and a Greek-Coptic
glossary, which is written by a Greek . . .. text, however, is a collection
of Inscriptions at Abidos (Abydos) (the western side of Balyana), which
is dated to the second century.24

Old
Coptic: Father Shenouda continues his study concerning the development
of the pronunciation system of the ancient Egyptian vocabulary, noting
that “during the Roman period . . . an increasing number of Greek characters
mixed with words derived from Demotic, most particularly in the cases where
the accurate pronunciation of certain Egyptian terms is mostly needed.”25

As an example, Father Shenouda
writes about the Munich Papyrus, the Egyptian Pagan Papyri dated from the
second Century A.D., the London and Leiden Magical Papyrus dated in the
third century A. D., and other magical papyri dated in the first three
centuries A.D. Why are all these papyri written in Greek scripts with Demotic
characters? Father Shenouda answers,

Writing in Greek script with
Demotic characters is a safeguard in these magical papyri against mispronunciation
of certain terms related to magic and the devils . . .. It becomes evident
then that the above papyri which are known as Old Coptic and to which we
refer in the Coptic dictionaries with this sign O evolved out of necessity
among pagan groups before the appearance of Christianity in Egypt.26

The
Dialects of the Coptic Language: The Coptic language was divided
into different dialects according to the regions of Egypt and the length
of the Nile Valley. Egyptians lived in varied places — around the marshes,
close to the banks of the Nile, in oases, in cities, while many worked
in agriculture and dwelt in villages. For this reason, we can trace the
dialects in Egypt from the earliest time of the ancient Egyptian language
until it appeared clearly and was written in the Greco-Roman era. From
studying the early manuscripts and inscriptions onward, philologists have
divided the Coptic language into Boheiric, and the Upper Egyptian dialects
of Sahidic, Faiyumic, and Akhmimic, as well as secondary dialects that
follow.27

Boheiric
Dialect:This is the dialect of
Lower Egypt. Some scholars gave it this name thinking it belonged to the
language of the area neighboring the Mediterranean. However, it probably
belonged to the province of Bohira in Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt lies in
the northern part of the country and the North in Egypt refers to Bahri.
The Boheiric dialect was previously and wrongly called the Memphatic dialect.
It is believed that Boheiric was the first dialect used in the style of
writing upon which agreement was reached in the city of Alexandria. In
general, Boheiric is the only dialect whose writing form was to some extent
borrowed from the Demotic. It appears that the pronunciation in the other
dialects had no relation to the Demotic nor did those creating the other
dialects use Boheiric spelling as a beginning point. Unfortunately, the
original pronunciation of the Boheiric dialect is not known exactly as
all the papyri having linguistic importance have disappeared. In the eleventh
century A.D., after the seat of the Pope was moved from Alexandria to Cairo,
the Bohairic dialect became the literary language for all of Egypt and
is still used, to some extent, in Coptic liturgy.28

The Boheiric dialect was
employed in Alexandria and its districts, the Nile Delta, and the Valley
of Natrun. The books of the Coptic Church today are written in the Bohairic
dialect, with the sole exception of one hymn. Another manuscript, entitled
“The History of How the Miaroun Is Made,” was written mostly in Boheiric
although some parts are in the Sahidic dialect.29

Upper
Egyptian Dialects (Sahidic, Faiyumic, and Akhmimic): (1)
Sahidic refers to Upper Egypt or the “high land,” for the Nile runs from
Upper to Lower Egypt. “Upper” refers to the south of Egypt and in Arabic
has the name “Sahid,” from which the Sahidic dialect appeared. This dialect
belongs to area around ancient Thebes and thereafter was employed for the
literature of Upper Egypt. From the point of view of Worell, “the dialect
[was] established after the Boheiric dialect and it seems that it was borrowed
from one of the dialects which was used as a spoken dialect in the northern
part of the Nile Valley from Memphis until Asyut.”30

(2)
Faiyumic was employed in Faiyum and incorrectly called Bashmouria.

(3)
Akhmimic was used in the city of Akhmim until it weakened and gave way
to the Sahidic.31

These are the main dialects
and from them appeared some secondary dialects, including the following.

(a)
The Memphitic was used as a spoken language in Memphis and replaced the
Boheiric dialect. (b) The secondary Akhmimic
or the Asyutic was used from Oxyrhynchus (El Behnisa) to Asyut and was
descended from the Akhmimic. (c) The dialect
of Bashmur was borrowed from the Boheiric. According to Worell, the native
writers of Egypt mentioned this dialect in their books. It was probably
an Egyptian dialect spoken by the Greeks who lived in the eastern part
of the Nile Delta and was written in Greek letters. (d)
The Oasis dialect was a mixed dialect from the Faiyumic and Sahidic according
to the Coptic text discovered by Ahmed Fakhry in 1951.32

The
Coptic Literature:The Copts used
their language with its dialects in their literature, religious texts,
the Bible, letters, stories, receipts, the Books of the Coptic Church,
legal documents, histories of their church, and general among the Coptic
population. In addition to their writing in Coptic, they translated different
books from Greek into Coptic and from Coptic into Arabic or from Coptic
into Greek, Syriac, and Latin. The most important translation was that
of the Bible from Greek into Coptic. This was an easy task for the Egyptian
as many of the time as well as some scholars of ours were familiar with
the two languages: Greek and Coptic. Even though the work was time consuming,
the religious zeal of the translators prodded them to an accurate translation.
It appears that the entire Bible was translated into the two dialects of
Boheiric and Sahidic.33

Coptic literature was divided
into two categories: Greek influenced and non-Greek influenced. The first
category was influenced by the Greek culture and was widespread in Alexandria;
a city established by Alexander the Great. Most of its inhabitants were
Greek with the Hellenistic culture widely known, which compelled many fathers
of the church to write in Greek. For a time, their writings were translated
into Coptic for the benefit of Copts in different parts of Egypt. The second
category was pure Coptic literature such as that which appeared in the
writings of St. Anthony, St. Pachomius, and others who knew no language
other than Coptic. Moreover, Saint Shenoute knew the Greek language but
did not use it in his writings or preaching, preferring Coptic in its Sahidic
dialect, which was employed by the Coptic Church during its periods of
greatest activity.34

Also relevant to the second
category are the many elements of ancient Egyptian civilization inherited
by the Copts, especially in the fields of science such as medicine, anatomy,
chemistry, pharmacy, architecture, and engineering as well as mathematics
and astronomy. Various Coptic documents available to us have revealed such
branches of study from the Greco-Roman times until the Arab conquest.35

Along with scientific topics,
the Copts also wrote the history of the church and the history of the Patriarchs
of Alexandria. The most famous writers included: John of Nikiu (second
half of the seventh century A.D.); Sawirus Ibn al-Muqaffa (second half
of the tenth and early eleventh century); Bishop Mikhail of Tanis, who
was contemporaneous with Sawirus the Patriarch and who wrote the history
of the Patriarchs (especially from Khael the Third, 880-907 A.D., until
Senouthios, 1032-1046 A.D.); and Bishop Yusab of Fowa (from the thirteenth
century A.D.)36

(2) The Synexarium is the
book that includes the biographies of the fathers and the saints of the
church and their deeds. In addition to the Synexarium, some other volumes
on Coptic saints exist, including those of Palladius, Athanasius, Jerome,
and John Cassian. The Synexarium is still in the Coptic Church on specific
occasions, especially during the Mass, and usually is read by one of the
priests of the church.

(3) In “The History of the
Councils,” the Copts wrote about local and international assemblies.37

(4) Several books and documents
have been discovered that were written by the Copts on general history,
such as that by John of Nikiu concerning the history of the world from
the creation until the Arab conquest.38

Moreover, the Copts worked
in different braches of literature, both religious and general, in addition
to their translation activities. An example is the translation of the Bible
from Greek into Coptic started in the second century A. D. This translation
was very accurate because the translations were familiar with both languages.
As mentioned earlier, between the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., the
entire Bible was translated into two Coptic dialects, Boheiric and Saidic,
and some portions were translated into Akhmimic and Faiyumic dialects.
At the same time, many “patristic” texts were handed down in their writings.
In addition, the biographies of the saints were important in strengthening
the faith of the people. For this reason, thousands of books were written
about these saints, monks, martyrs, and some of the bishops and patriarchs.
The Coptic literature is rich in its novels and stories, which scholars
have divided into two categories: native and religious. Little remains
of the native literature, but the deeds and documents that have survived
were letters and contracts that give us an idea concerning the everyday
life in Coptic Egypt. Other writings referred to the monks and the activities
inside the monasteries.39

The Copts did not use poems
in the non-religious sense. Any poetry they wrote belonged to the hymns
of the angles, Saint Mary, prophets, saints, and martyrs; thus, they names
the poems “alhan,” meaning “hymns.” They also used poems form in some stories
and in prayers borrowed from the Bible, especially from the Book of Psalms
or the New Testament. They were employed in praising the Lord. Many of
the church fathers wrote articles on theology and were famous for their
writings that defended their faith. Many others wrote about monks, their
life, their conduct, and about how to be isolated in the desert to worship
God. They also wrote about the laws of the monks, which should be followed
in order to be certain of inheriting the eternal kingdom.40

The Copts took the custom
of wailing from the ancient Egyptian, which is clear from the hundreds
of funeral stelae discovered in various parts of Egypt.41

Coptic magic was widespread
among both pagans and Christians. This was not a new phenomenon in Coptic
Egypt but goes back to ancient Egyptians when magicians practiced; this
practice continues to the present time. The belief in magic came about
as a result of the limited knowledge of the common people concerning the
natural occurrences in everyday life, which they believe were caused by
evil or good spirits. Accordingly, the populace thought it had to practice
magic to discourage the evil spirits and encourage the good ones. Thus,
the study of magic is of utmost importance in supplying us with information
on cultural anthropology when we study the problems of humans in different
societies. Scholars noted from their study of Coptic magic that many Eastern
and Western nations have borrowed spells from the Coptic tradition.42
In addition, Flinders Petrie has published 270 spells well known to the
ancient Egyptians in his book Amulets, where he mentioned, “the
Egyptian Magic is the foundation for all kinds of magic in the earth.”43

The
Role of the Coptic Church: “The confirmation of the Coptic Alphabet
as well-know to-day, in addition to the spelling of words and laying the
foundation of stylistic and grammatical regulations, are mostly the work
of the Christian church in Egypt.”44

The Greek language was utilized
in Alexandria in a missionary role between the Greek and the Copts.45
As Christianity was adopted by many of the Egyptians (Coptic Christianity),
their language was used throughout Lower and Upper Egypt; however, Greek
did not spread widely among the Egyptians except in Alexandria.46

As a result of Christian
missionary activity, the translation of the Four Gospels took place before
270 A.D., but all “the translation of the Scriptures which started in the
third century A.D. was completed in full in the fourth century.”47

The Annunciation tidings
and the Psalms, however, are probably the first Scriptures that were the
subject of the translation from Greek. This was followed by the translation
of the rest of the Holy Scriptures and other church books into Coptic up
until the Council of Chalcedony in 451 A.D. After which the Copts lost
interest in the translation from Greek.48

The
Authors and Their Workin the
Coptic Language

In addition to that mentioned
earlier, it would be useful to cite here those who started to use the Coptic
language in their literature between the second and fourth centuries, including
the following saints: Antony, Hieracas (the scribe of Leontopolis), Pachomius,
Theodorus of Tabennese, and Horsiesos.49

Even the texts of the Nag
Hammadi Library do not have any dates, but a good number of scholars believe
that these texts, which were translated from Greek into Coptic, were from
the main period “ranging at least from the beginning to the end of the
fourth century C.E.”50

St. Shenoute, one of the
greatest writers in Coptic literature in the fifth century, “knew theology
and was interested in many subtle questions of ethics and physics, which
he treated in a manner characteristic of his times. His influence on Coptic
literature is due not only to his vast production but also to the work
of translation that he fostered and supervised, as it seems, in his monastery.”51

Most of those who worked
in Coptic literature during the fourth and fifth centures were translators.
They translated from Greek into Coptic many “hagiographical works.” Some
of the names of these translators included “Athanasius I, Basil the Great,
Cyril I of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ephraem Syrus, Epiphanies of
Salamis, Jerome the Presbyter, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory
of Nyssa, Palladius, Proclus of Constantinople, Severian of Gabala, Severus
of Antioch, Theodosius I, Theophilus of Alexandria. In addition to the
topics noted earlier, “There are also the Apocrypha . . . the Agophthegmata
Patrum, and the Canonical literature, which are treated in their particular
articles.”

Because of the severe conflict
between the Coptic Church and that of Byzantium as well as others, “This
is probably the moment when Greek began to be perceived as the language
of the oppressors and the patristic Greek (“’international’) culture was
looked upon with suspicion as the vehicle of false dogmas and misleading
historical information.”52

In the sixth century, we
read of the following books written in Coptic, one by Eusebius about the
history of the church (in two parts) and others by Macarius of Tkow about
his Panegyric.

The same mixture of history
and legend is to be found in many other texts Recounting the lives of such
figures as Severus of Antioch, the famous monk John of Lycopolis, and Dioscorus
. . .. Of a more polemic character were the “Plerophories,” a series of
little stories by John of Mayuma to prove the thesis of anti-Chalcedonians.53

In this century, we also
read about the Council of Nicea, the Didascalia and the Acts of Ephesus,
which concentrated on Victor of Tabennese, the monk.

In the sixth century as well,
the Coptic literature included the Nicean Council and other texts, including
the lives of great monks, their history, legends, and miracles. Among these
monks were Abraham of Farshut, Matthew the Poor, and Moses of Balyana.

In the late sixth and early
seventh centuries, we have different documents written in Coptic by St.
Damian, the patriarch of Alexandria, St. Pistentius, bishop of Coptos (Qift),
St. Athanasius, the martyr, Claudius, and the martyr George. John of Shmun
wrote a panegyries about St. Mark the Evangelist and another about . Anthony.
Bishop John of Parallos in the northern Delta wrote “against the apocryphal
and heretical books”; Rufus of Shotep “wrote the last preserved example
of exegetical activity before the Arab invasion of 642.” The Patriarch
Benjamin I left a “homily on the miracle of Cana” and a “short passage
of the panegyrie of Shenoute.” Patriarch Agathon wrote a homily and “composed
a panegyric of Benjamin.” Of the patriarch John III, St. Menas of Pshati,
bishop of Nikiou, Zacharias Bishop of Sakha, and the patriarch Mark III,
some wrote a panegyric of saints and others composed theological treatises
or described some of the lives of the patriarchs or wrote Coptic homilies.
Because of their usage of the Coptic language, they demonstrated that one
should “appreciate . . . the ability of all these men to write and speak
a Coptic language that is perfectly capable of expressing any concept desired.”54

In the seventh and eighth
centuries, the Coptic writings were concentrating on propagandist, to strengthen
the faith of the people in their church and for those outside the church
“to affirm the existence, antiquity, and orthodoxy of the doctrine of the
Coptic church.”55

The ninth to the eleventh
centuries was a period of decline for the Coptic language and literature
because of the spread of the Arabic language.

Therefore, the historian
should first recognize in this final stage of Coptic literature the last
activity of Coptic writers — an activity of redaction, choice, and systematization,
not creation. Then, by means of these late texts, the historian may trace
stratifications to recover the older stages of literature. For, if it is
true that the Coptic writing is consistent in quality and subject matter,
being almost exclusively religious, its products are in fact diverse in
character, content, and style.56

The
Decline of the Coptic Language

The Coptic language is the
last phase of the ancient Egyptian language but is written in the Greek
alphabet plus seven Demotic letters.57 The Copts or the Christian
Egyptians employed it as their spoken and written language in their daily
lives as well as in their churches for several centuries before the Arab
conquest. After the invasion of the Arabs in 642 A.D., Arabic gradually
began to replace the Coptic language, especially in 705/706 A. D. when
the “Umayyad Viceroy ‘Abd-Allah Ibn ‘Abd-al-Malik issued the hazardous
and untimely decree substituting Arabic for Coptic in all state Affairs.”58
Thus, the native scribe had to learn Arabic, which is attested by the number
of bilingual documents written in different centuries.

The decline in the use of
Coptic was also linked to the widespread acceptance of Islam, with many
Christians adopting the new religion in order to work as officials in the
Islamic government. Evidence of the decline of Coptic can be seen in a
text from the tenth century urging the preservation of the Coptic language.
From this we can deduce that Arabic had begun to replace Coptic in most
parts of the Nile Valley in this century.

The grip of the Coptic language
grew weaker even though it continued to be used as a spoken and liturgical
language until about the thirteenth century A.D. until the thirteenth century,
when Arabic became the written and spoken language and Copts began to write
their theological books in Arabic. However, in Upper Egypt, Coptic was
still in use until the seventeenth century. When the language began to
fade, Copts wrote it in Arabic letters, some manuscripts of which we have
indicating this usage.59

The Arab writer Al-Maqrisi,
who lived in the fifteenth century, mentioned that the monks in some monasteries
were still using the Coptic language and most of the wives and children
of Christians living in Upper Egypt used Coptic in their daily speech.
In addition, Maspero stated that the inhabitants of Upper Egypt were speaking
and writing the Coptic language until the early years of the sixteenth
century A.D. By the eighteenth century, the Coptic language was considered
dead even though it is still employed in the many prayers and liturgies
of the Coptic Church to this day and some of its vocabulary has been mixed
into the Arabic in the modern, common spoken Arabic of Egypt.60